Days locked in a haze (trying to forget you)
by Semi-Retired Writer
Summary: GBPPD. Peter's learning to cope with May's death, but Parker luck always finds a way to make things worse.


**Days locked in a haze (trying to forget you)**

Peter's weekend started out much like any other Post-May weekend. He kicked it off with an extra-long Friday night patrol that gave him an excuse to be away from _home_ —not that it was much of a home anymore, just a two bedroom apartment where her smell unfairly lingered, tempered only by the bags of trash he was still working up the motivation to carry to the dumpster and the faint trace of once copious cleaning chemicals he'd gone through trying to scrub away the blood her attacker had spilled onto their living room floor—until four in the morning was quickly approaching and he could barely keep his eyes open, let alone stop any crime or help any people.

To think he once looked forward to weekends so he could have some downtime and relax a little. Now he dreaded them, still overwhelmed with the prospect of having to spend time in the place where she died. It was hard to distract himself when nothing was fun anymore; his ability to enjoy anything for longer than a few minutes disappeared months ago and had yet to return for long.

If he was being honest with himself, he was lonely. It wasn't a particularly big apartment, but it was too much for one person. Mr. Stark had offered to move him into the tower when he first found out, even kept suggesting it for a few weeks after Peter turned him down the first time. He'd thought he was making the right choice when he'd asked that May's rent be covered instead so that he could stay where they'd both called home for the last two years. He'd thought it would help him remember and give him that little bit of extra familiarity while everything else was changing, and that tactic _did_ work after Uncle Ben's death, but this time it just reminded him of what he would never have again. He didn't know if he could do it anymore. Everyone he loved not only died, but died too soon, too suddenly, too unexpectedly. None of them deserved it, and sure, it wasn't technically his fault, but it sure felt like it was. If he'd just come home early enough to save Aunt May…

His thoughts were spiraling into self-pity and 'what if's, something they tended to do more often than not when he was alone these days. Once he started down that path, it was too hard to put a conscious stop to it. That was his final hint to ditch the suit and walk home for the night so he could get some rest and hide the self-blame under the veil of sleep.

The sun was close to its peak when he woke up on Saturday. He caught himself muffling a groan when it struck his eyes the instant he cracked them open, but then he realized there was no point in muffling anything anymore and indulged in an unfiltered moan of annoyance. No one acknowledged it. He moved on with his morning.

His morning routine could only take so much time when he didn't care to look particularly nice and didn't have anyone slowing him down by hogging the bathroom or dancing across his path. He brought his breathing under control after that thought and dragged his feet back to his bedroom with a sigh.

His gaze landed on a textbook on the floor still opened to the reading due Monday—the pity extensions on due dates were long over, so he couldn't fall back on those anymore—but he didn't care and trudged on until he was just in front of the bed, letting his weight fall until he landed face-down on the comforter and momentarily lost his breath with a muffled, "Oomph!" It was mostly a manufactured reaction; he often caught himself overreacting to the littlest things at home now, comforted by the sounds of life like they somehow proved he wasn't alone.

He ran over his options for the day: wallow in misery on the couch (his go-to for the first couple months post-May), find continuous distractions (the most likely to chase away the guilt and motivate him enough to focus on his homework later), patrol (really just another distraction, but one that required more focus), or socialize (the option everyone relentlessly shoved on him when given half a chance). None of them sounded particularly appealing, but he settled for patrolling.

He'd had an annoying slight headache ever since he'd woken up, not enough to be worth attempting pain meds but enough to constantly notice, and exercise tended to chase those away easily enough. Nausea had inched its way in as well, but he'd have to ignore that. Mr. Stark would be pissed if he found out he was patrolling on an empty stomach with _his_ metabolism, so he choked down a couple slices of plain toast and put a snack out on the counter for easy access in case he was up for more when he came back.

Patrol now was never as good as before, but that day's was still a good one, all things considered. He stopped a store from being robbed at gunpoint with no damage caused on his or the would-be robber's part, gave a man who was running late an express lift to work, and even had time to talk to some kids who were bouncing in their excitement to meet him.

He swung back in through his bedroom window late that afternoon, the headache long gone and his appetite back in full force. He was proud of himself when he felt up to a full meal and not only finished his homework, but read an extra chapter ahead of the assignment to prepare for the school week. By then, it was late enough to call it an early night and turn in.

He was caught off guard when the headache and uneasy stomach were back the next morning. Yeah, he'd been more prone to illness since—well, over the past few months—but this was ridiculous. He'd gone through the whole psychosomatic crap early on. It shouldn't be back now; he was getting _better_ , and _this_ was not better.

Resigning himself to his fate, he groaned. If he had to wake up sick-ish for a while, so be it. Patrolling had distracted him enough to help yesterday, so he immediately made his plans for the day, aiming to get out of the apartment as long as he could now that he had no other obligations left for the weekend.

Another patrol slipped by, leaving him feeling almost normal again. He even laughed at most of the right parts of the TV show that served as his distraction after he came home.

The stomachache was back by the time he curled up in bed, but it made sense. He'd managed three hours of wakefulness after patrol, but they weren't as distraction-heavy and left his mind free to fabricate symptoms again. He chewed his way through a few Tums and tried to sleep it off.

Monday? Sunday? He knew it was one of those… brought the same insistent headache throbbing against his skull when he rolled out of bed. He rubbed at his eyes to clear up his vision, but there was a haze he couldn't chase away. Maybe he really was getting sick, and it wasn't all in his head. Why _would_ it be in his head? That made no sense anyway. People caught bugs all the time.

"May?" He didn't feel like going to school today. May was a pushover about sick days since she found out about Spider-Man; he just had to get her to hear him, and she'd definitely let him skip. He didn't even know if he had the strength to get out of bed. Something didn't feel right. Not something around the apartment, something inside of him. Something more than a headache and a somersaulting stomach, something that wasn't quite physical.

She never answered. He fell back asleep and trusted her to handle things anyway. She was on top of that stuff. Aunt May never let him down.

He rushed to flip over and heave over the edge of the bed the next time he woke. When he could finally get a steady breath in again, he barely had the energy to flop onto his back. Screw the mess. He felt _awful_ , but May was still MIA as far as he could tell from his limited vantage point on the bed.

There weren't any signs of her. The sun was filtering in through his window, and something told him it was a school day. He wasn't sure _what_ told him that, but he trusted it since it hurt to think much with the stinging headache that had never faded away.

If it was a weekday, she would've checked in on him by now, though… May never trusted him to wake up with his alarm, which was fair. He slept through it at least once a week and needed the little push she gave him on those days. So was it a weekend then? A holiday he forgot? His brain felt fuzzy enough that he wouldn't put it past himself. Or did she have an early shift? Why wasn't she here?

He wasn't just going to lay here waiting to find out. Groping at his bedside table, he found his phone and scrolled through his texts until he reached her contact. It was weirdly far down the list, but he could worry about texting her more often later on, when he was feeling better.

 _I'm staying home today_

 _Where are you?_

He fell into a light doze before he got a response, but it was just a series of question marks.

 _You didn't wake me up or say goodbye_

No response.

 _Did you have an early shift?_

Still nothing.

 _Miss you_

 _When are you coming home?_

That was the text that earned a response.

 _Who is this? Think u have the wrong #_

There was no way he did, but he looked up at the contact information to double check. It was definitely Aunt May's number. Did she change her number and forget to tell him of all people? And when?

He sent an apology to the stranger before he hauled himself out of bed, groaning all the way when the room tilted around him and refused to settle into place.

There wasn't a note on the fridge or the front door. That wasn't like May. Things weren't adding up. Something was still wrong, but he couldn't pinpoint what. It was something important, something that was going to make him feel like a complete idiot after he figured it out. He could tell.

Well, he wasn't going to figure it out on his own, not like this. It'd come back to him eventually. Whatever he'd managed to catch was kicking his ass already so until then, he was content to curl up on the couch for a change of scenery. He didn't know when he shifted from zoning out staring at the back cushion of the leather couch to sleeping again, but he was abruptly woken by the sound of the front door clicking open.

"May?"

It had to be her. The door had definitely been locked, and they were the only two with keys, but when she didn't answer right away he sacrificed his limited strength to twist around and peer over the arm of the couch only to see…

"Mr. Stark? What are you doing here?"

"You haven't been getting out of this place often enough, and no, patrol still doesn't count. You _know_ we had an agreement about that. So, how about we hang out at the tower for a couple hours? Clint's even grilling tonight, and I know how much you like his burgers." He threw in a wink for added effect, but it wasn't enough to convince Peter to infect the whole party with his illness.

"Some other time? I'm…" He'd been going somewhere with that thought, but his stomach leaped and pulled him out of whatever direction he'd been heading with his words.

He couldn't focus over the head rush that came with propping himself up enough to face Tony, and he could feel the prickle of his face paling before he gagged and threw up without any real warning for the second time that day.

When he surfaced, Mr. Stark wasn't smirking anymore.

"You been going out in the suit while you're sick?" he asked, but it was rhetorical. He didn't give Peter time to respond before barging on. "FRIDAY, get me a diagnosis from the Spider-suit."

The two AIs took a moment to interface while Peter turned and buried his face in his knees in hopes of chasing away the headache with the right pressure and the dizziness with the complete lack of movement.

"Readings indicate a high likelihood of carbon monoxide poisoning with initial exposure estimated to be eight to ten hours prior to Saturday's vitals reading."

Mr. Stark's couldn't-care-less façade dropped and his eyes widened. It was so out of character that it would've been comical if he didn't feel so bad. Peter's murky brain was probably missing whatever caused it, but it didn't matter. The man wasted no time in pulling him to his feet and ineffectively frog-marching him out of the apartment to sit on the stairs fully clad in his Captain America themed pajama set before speaking again.

"Why didn't you tell me when you got that vitals alert?" FRIDAY answered before Peter could offer an explanation or, more accurately, an excuse.

"Peter has disabled the vitals readouts as well as all other AI voice functionality in the suit."

Oh. That was the brutal reminder he needed, the cure to the confusing thoughts of Aunt May lingering at the back of his mind. _How did he forget?_ _How_ did he _forget_ that one of the most important people in the world was _gone_? No no no no no no no–

"You didn't think to _tell_ me you disabled a core feature of the suit? Pete, carbon monoxide poisoning _kills_ people," Mr. Stark lectured. It stung, but it metaphorically slapped him out of the May-is-gone-oh-God-oh-God stupor all the same.

Peter had been on the receiving end of plenty of Mr. Stark's surprisingly parental lectures since meeting the man and _especially_ since May's death, but they hurt now more than ever. The disappointment had always been there, but now these talks came with an undercurrent of wrongness the more time passed without getting a second, more heated rehashing of the same lecture in May's voice.

That was the problem. He didn't _want_ another replacement parent. Replacing his parents with his aunt and uncle the first time had been painful enough once he matured enough to understand what had happened. He didn't want to do it again. No, he just wanted his aunt back.

"It goes without saying how disappointed I am. I could've helped you with this _before_ it became a problem if you hadn't turned off your alerts. Those are no joke, kid. Idesigned the AI to only alert you when things were serious, and what you did?" He heard a sort of choke before the man finished. "That was dangerous."

The old Peter had always been too afraid to argue against Mr. Stark over anything that wasn't vitally important, but post-May Peter had the same opinions and thoughts and _feelings_ now bubbling just below the surface with nowhere else to go, and he didn't want to bite his tongue anymore.

"I couldn't take it, _okay_!?" he yelled back. He only realized his voice came out louder than he meant it to when his head twinged in response. "Karen feels too much like her, and I can't listen to her every day when I'm trying to focus! I _can't_!"

He choked up and couldn't bring himself to elaborate aloud, but the thoughts spiraled in his mind. Their voices really even didn't sound alike at all, but he couldn't stop himself from projecting her onto anything even vaguely reminiscent of his memories. Hell, he couldn't even go through the _lunch line_ some days, frozen in fear over the head cook's penchant for pet names exactly like the ones _she_ used to call him by.

It was no simple disagreement; that much was clear. To his credit, Mr. Stark did a decent job of letting him decompress and get it all out there in the dingy apartment hallway, though there was no denying how pissed he was even with full context. The couple bursts of unbridled anger were enough to show that. Even so, Peter found it easier and easier to keep talking and finally sensed more of a mutual understanding by the end.

One conversation couldn't solve every problem and miscommunication between them. There was too much to discuss and resolve, and so much of it would drag out old emotional wounds in the process. So despite Mr. Stark's obvious need to _fix_ , they didn't. Not exactly, anyway.

Even Peter was in favor of accepting Mr. Stark's long-extended offer of moving in after the whole experience in tandem with the conversation chipping down his reservations. Everyone else seemed to think it was such a good idea from the start, and maybe he wasn't entirely convinced yet, but… He was ready to give it a shot if nothing else. What more could he lose?

It was a simpler decision than he'd blown it up to be in his fearful fantasies and late night 'what if's. It only took the time spent in the tower medbay with Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner (as well as a few other Avengers dropping in periodically) to sell him on the prospect.

A part of him wanted to drag out the process, knew he could manipulate Mr. Stark into "just one more day," but a braver, more well-adjusted part told him to jump right in and get used to it. That part won out thanks to the team's relentless badgering.

It wasn't a real goodbye, and he knew it. Mr. Stark _promised_ they'd hold onto the unit until Peter was ready to let it go. That didn't stop him from getting choked up at the threshold of the apartment, three stuffed duffle bags slung over his shoulders containing pretty much everything he still cared about. Mr. Stark had walked out ahead of him with the two other bags, so at least he had some semblance of privacy to wipe a few stray tears away before stepping out and turning his key in the lock.

This would be the fresh start he needed to heal.

He just had to keep reminding himself that.


End file.
